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Balance between conditioning and common sense

I've been trying to find some science about repeated impacts to the face and head, and the long term implications of such.

There's a fair bit about boxing, and American football comes up a lot too. I get that. There's two examples of sports where very substantial wallops to the head are fairly routine.

But what about less forceful blows? What if two training partners, wearing lightly padded sparring gloves, knock each other about at about 50% force, just to enable each other to overcome/control the flinch response, and to practice not being stunned by an impact? I can't find anything science backed on that kind of regular head impact.

Common sense dictates that anything that rattles the brain or causes bruising or bleeding to anywhere about the head or face has the potential to lead to problems. But common sense surely also dictates that all the martial arts training in the world counts for precisely nothing if we become paralysed with shock, pain and fear as soon as the first impact arrives.

An important topic! I’m not aware of any scientific papers on repeated semi-hard hits … but the bottom line is that getting hit in the head with force is always bad for you. Getting hit with a gloved fist is also nothing like getting hit with a bare fist. Therefore the “conditioning” benefits are somewhere between nothing and minimal, but the risk from such hits are significant.

Another thing to consider is that most martial artists can’t hit hard. Many don’t even know what real hard is. If you are training with people that can hit “real hard”, no amount of head guards and gloves will prevent brain damage and injury. My experience has been that most who claim to train “full contact” to the head are, in truth, training “poor contact” and that’s why it seems to work without people getting badly hurt.

I spent years having weekly heavy contact sparring sessions and headaches afterward (sometimes days afterward) were relatively common. It developed aggression and “heart”, but there are better ways to do that I think. As I said earlier, the conditioning element – i.e. “getting you used to taking a punch” – does not really hold up to scrutiny because a bare fist feels totally different.

It is possible to develop will, spirit, heart, etc without risking brain damage in the process. Training “intelligently hard” will see us grow stronger without damage. Training “unintelligently hard” can lead to injury, ill health, deep fatigue, etc. In short, dumb training makes us weaker not stronger.

Even most pro-fighters don’t train full contact because it can result in injury and shortened careers. I recall reading an article by boxing coach Brendan Ingle (who trained no less than four world champions) where he said that the only time anyone should get punched hard in the head was, “when they are getting paid millions of dollars for it to happen”. It’s not something he advised in training. I agree and think all head contact should be light.

Anf wrote:

common sense surely also dictates that all the martial arts training in the world counts for precisely nothing if we become paralysed with shock, pain and fear as soon as the first impact arrives.

Very true, but hard contact to the head is not the most efficient way to overcome those things. Training with intensity, aggression and drive are what is needed. We get used to overcoming discomfort, stress and fear in the relentless pursuit of the objective. We need drills that are so intense and arduous that they take us beyond the physical to the realm of will.

As per the most recent podcast, I believe martial arts should be both life-preserving and life-enhancing. Regular head contact is detrimental to both.

An interesting one, I myself wanted to get stuck in more and get used to ''staying in the mix'' due to feeling that light kumite, with pulling off, maybe wasn't doing me justice for if (hopefully never with awareness/avoidance) a barrage of punches from a real opponent in a live situation was to happen.

So naturally I think it's time to go up some levels with a few willing partners and try staying more committed whilst throwing and taking a few in a more full contact engagment, however, then the common sense angel on my shoulder says ''but think about the injury, the shock and impact to the head, the missing teeth and broken noses etc...'' and immediatly I'm caught between the rock and a hard place, no further on.

So I started looking up information regarding taking regular knocks to the head and what impact (no pun intended) it has. I accept broken/dislocated fingers and toes, along with ribs as being the collateral part of the karate world or any martial art, but brain damage and bad injuries such as a broken jaw and eye socket is something I can't afford when going to work on Monday morning. The general understanding seems to be that taking heavy shots isn't good for you in the long term and hense, as Iain says above, a lot of top athletes such as Connor Mc Greggor are now realising contact at a pace of 70% or even less, is just as beneficial as going all out round after round 2 - 3 times a week... as the saying goes ''train smart, fight smart!''.

I also read, more than once, that secondary concussion is a less recognised issue and even more serious. Secondary concussion happens a lot over in Thailand, where the control and governing bodies are less than practical or efficient in providing safety for their ''registered fighters'', as a result a Muay Thai fight will take place and in the brutal nature of the sport, a fighter gets knocked out or recieves a concussion with no loss of consciousness (still a type of concussion) leaves the fight, but then returns for another bout only a week or two later, their brain is still in a state of damage/shock, not having enough time to recover if they then suffer another concussion it can prove fatal, this is where death or immediate serious brain damage takes place sadly... so one to bear in mind if you are knocked out or feel the side effects of been KO'd, stop and rest... no contact fighting for at least a month is the advice some professionals tender.

Interestingly I also feel a lot to do with the long term side affects of Boxing, American football, English football (heading the ball) or Martial arts is down to the individual and their anatomy construction, I live near a 90 year old professional boxer who fought during the era of 'stand and slug' style boxing back in the day when no consideration to constant full contact sparring was given, and he is as sharp mentally and fit physically as a 60 year old! Then on the other hand you get some that take a few reasonable shots or have a minor head trauma and suffer an aneurysm (brain bleed) with fatal consequences... sometimes luck and genetics play a huge part.

Now... what have I done to reach a compromise?

I do 75% pace, with full contact bursts against an average of 5 different opponents for 2 - 3 minutes at a time. I wear 16 oz boxing gloves and a RDX head guard I found on Amazon that has a solid detachable face shield, you'll still get the impact and kinect energy follow through with a brain shake but no cuts, broken nose, jaw or bad swelling, whilst at the same time, being able to let go and pressure test your techniques more realistically, a gum shield is also a sensible option of course. I do this once a week and have seen great improvements in my ability to ''stay in the mix'' and lose that turn away flinch response that's built into us all!

I still do my light kumite and make sure not to forget to pull my punches lol the combination of both, along with my Kihons and kata, make for a balanced karate life I really enjoy. No major injuries, just good fun!

2 other tips to take into consideration are defence and real time situational aggression with adrenalin response. I find keeping a tight high guard against a strong forward walking opponent gives me the ability to block and counter, having a strong guard taking 80% of incoming shots, gives me time to peek through the guard and wait for that moment of timing inbetween their shots (helping stop flinching) for me to get to work and counter as necessary. The other is how you'll act under stress with adrenalin realease and aggression, it's suprising how much you can take when fuelled up in a fight, and you'd probably find your aggression coupled with a want to damage an opponent bridges that gap and masks the feeling of flinching to the point where it's diluted to nearly being non existent...until the adrenalin wears off :)

To summarise, everything in moderation with sensible precautions... all the above in Iain's post couldn't be put better and more true. I'm not a brain surgeon nor a neuro scientist and so my post is purely non medically based advice only. The brain is the most complicated, technical piece of equipment that man can't recreate and come close to making, so it serves well to treat it with respect, after all you wouldn't lift something of equivalence above your head (say a computer/laptop) and then drop it on a floor, one body and brain... look after it.

Many thanks for creating a brilliant website giving us the ability to vent, discuss and further understand our karate questions and dilemmas. The above was my first post and I look forward to more in the future...

I think based on all of that, I think I might make my focus outside of class, more about blocking, evading, and spotting/creating openings. Ie try to develop the skills to not get hit in the first place.

I note that for most of us, if we're not in a job where violent encounters are commonplace, like police or door staff etc, then we're actually not that likely to get hit for real. Thinking like that, it seems highly illogical to voluntarily get regularly beaten just in case someone one day hits us. But from a personal interest point of view, I think it's nice to know that the ability to fight is there if needed. I guess adrenaline combined with being quite used to thinks coming towards your face probably help a lot in a real situation. That combined with the knowledge that actually most punches do not actually connect with that much power. If they connect at all they are quite often glancing blows, as long as the target is moving. We see this all the time in both training and in real fight footage (or outside the kebab shop on a Saturday night). In training for example, everyone things they're doing really good punches when fighting thin air, but once the focus pads cone out quite often folks are frustrated and disappointed as the force of impact on the pads is nowhere near what they'd imagined.

So I think I might focus more on defence. Like a variation of 'push hands' that the kung fu folks like to practice perhaps. Or tai sabaki like the aikido folks value so highly. Or a combination of both.

I think it is important to experience the full contact, just to know how does it feel, but I my training we don't train all the time full contact as it is dangerous.

I had unfortunate luck to have few fights in my life, and always adrenaline was so high that I did not felt any pain. I was knocked out with something (plank, baton or whatever) I just woke up in the middle of the street in blood, never see it coming and not felt anything. Pain was huge when I woke up.

My point is that if you know how it feels in reality you do not have to train with full contact,

I came across this article few years back, I thought it was interesting.

Hi Les. Thanks for the insights. I too have had the misfortune of being caught up in a real situation, although thankfully never actually knocked out. I'm not sure if training helped or not because to be honest the whole episode was a bit of a blur. I remember my face and head hurt more about 2 days later than they did at the time.

I like the BBC article you link to, about the evolution of the male human face helping to protect us against punches. But to be honest I wouldn't take much reassurance from it. We must remember that present day modern man is already on borrowed time. From an evolutionary perspective we were only built to last long enough to reproduce and possible stick around a bit longer to protect our offspring for the first few years. We simply weren't built to last 70 years or more like we almost take as a given today. Early man was expendable. Built to serve a purpose and superfluous once that purpose, ie to ensure the continuation of the species, had been fulfilled. Such early man also didn't have to drive a car at 70mph on a winters night on his way home from his complex engineering or computing job, although that probably wouldn't matter because plenty of other things would be waiting to cause his natural demise way before the long term effects of his fist fights started to present themselves.

Such early man also didn't have to drive a car at 70mph on a winters night on his way home from his complex engineering or computing job, although that probably wouldn't matter because plenty of other things would be waiting to cause his natural demise way before the long term effects of his fist fights started to present themselves.

Reminded me of Graham. - In case you do not know Graham yet, follow the link: